Just a question before I move onto my Tamiya Mustang, should the cockpit floor be wood grain, or green? I have the HGW cockpit set and it supplies a wooden floor decal. I am going to build a 303 Sqn bird.

The floors were plywood but painted in a non-skid black/dark black/grey. Some modelers like the wood look, others 'wear' marks in the black to show the wood floor. I like the wood look personally but its not 'correct' per-se.

Honestly, the few pics I've found even the worn floors appear to be black. Not visually appealing, but there you go. Lots of pics if you do a google search or Martin here probably has a bunch

Just a question before I move onto my Tamiya Mustang, should the cockpit floor be wood grain, or green? I have the HGW cockpit set and it supplies a wooden floor decal. I am going to build a 303 Sqn bird.

The floors were plywood but painted in a non-skid black/dark black/grey. Some modelers like the wood look, others 'wear' marks in the black to show the wood floor. I like the wood look personally but its not 'correct' per-se.

Honestly, the few pics I've found even the worn floors appear to be black. Not visually appealing, but there you go. Lots of pics if you do a google search or Martin here probably has a bunch

Chris

When I was a kid I used to climb over a fence into a aircraft graveyard. They had many warbirds and rotery wing carcases schedualed to be scrapped. Several were P-51 (or more likely F-51s, it was the mid 50s).,

I remember at least one having thin aluminum sheeting screwed to wooden (plywood?) decking with two strips of nonslip material that felt like sandpaper glued on each side of the joystick. I have no idea if this was a one off or it was done during the refurb for Korea.

Amazon is selling them for $54.00 Early buyers pay a price. I bit and got the kit in today's mail. My first impression is that it is an engineering marvel. Congrats to Radub. Clearly a later (filleted) model will follow. IMHO the cockpit is better than Tamiya or ZM. The lack of an engine and gun bays actually pleases me. You who yearn for ultimate detail buy the Tamiya kit or, if you're brave of heart, the ZM kit. Cockpit, radiator ducting and wheel wells are masterfully executed. For $30 when it finally reaches mainstream markets it is a gem. Also despite other comments I believe Revell could reengineer it into a credible B/C without too much trouble.

It's already been established by the kit designer, and Revell, that a P-51B would require a newly designed tooling. There are just too many differences between the B/C and D/K for a simple re-engineering, despite what looks like suggestive hints in the parts breakdown. Hopefully it'll come eventually.

In the meantime it sounds like we have a real winner in this kit, with hopefully later versions to be released in time. I'm not so interested in the D-5, but thrilled it's out now.